If you want to debate, rather than derail another, very important thread, come here.

[MrsTerryPratchett]

I want to get all the shit off the Leah thread. If you want to debate NAMALT and similar, please do it here.

I would if it were illegal, but to my knowledge its not. Neither is misogyny.

For the avoidance of doubt I said Misogyny is NOT lads banter whatsapp groups, casual exchanges of sexually explicit photos and videos between men.

What you are talking about is workplace harassment of women by making comments to them or within their hearing (not a whattsapp group between lads) equally i think you mean telling women you are leaving them to do "women's work" just leaving them to do it without saying anything wouldn't be illegal either.

If you are referring to the trumpite "locker room talk in the workplace" you should adequately set out your position either here or in another thread and if its compelling enough ill respond.

The problem is that it's pretty difficult to have a balanced debate when somebody makes a load of generalisations about men and immediately follows it with a comment about how people always respond with “but women do that too!” How can you then point out the hypocrisy without falling into the trap?

It's pretty much like saying "trans women are women but the transphobes will no doubt be along to tell me I'm wrong". Similar attitudes are usually shown towards men's issues with anybody mentioning male suicide/homelessness etc being accused of pulling out an MRA trump card.

If somebody mentions that women attack men almost as much as the reverse, it's the higher number of female deaths that really matters. If somebody then points out that 4x more men kill themselves then suddenly it's the number of attempts that matter not the deaths. Hmmmm.

I just think many of the things Ted mentions aren't clear cut. They talk about the privilege of going to work, but the woman also has her own privilege if she doesn't return to work after the kids are at school yet shares a joint bank account benefiting from the man's work.

There's a reason people talk about 'ladies that lunch' and not 'lads that lunch' and when they shoe is on the other foot women don't tend to like it, evidenced by men who are SAHD or the lower earner being significantly more likely to be divorced by their wife.

Also, Ted mentions that men are taught that they come first, yet the saying men are taught from childhood is that 'ladies first' is the way a gentleman acts (maybe why so many women on dating sites specify 'gentlemen only'!).

I'm not siding with 'the menz' as people on here love to call them but I think it's important to look at both sides. I don't want society to just be a female version of the patriarchy. I actually want equality, which means things being good for men too, because like the vast majority of women nowadays I'm not a feminist and I actually like men.

It's very kind of women to help men carry the NAMALT load. Yes rates of DV might be astonishingly high, there might be a gender pay gap, a dearth of care + access in women's health, a hidden group of unpaid 'workers' who care for elderly relatives and young children made up of mostly women, but it's important that we recognise that in a sea of male violence not all of them are like that.

If your house catches fire or you crash your car and need cut out, it'll almost certainly be a man that comes to rescue you. I'm fairly certain that more female lives are saved by men than taken.

Now I wonder how many male lives are saved by women in comparison? 🤔

It’s just semantics really. People are talking at cross purposes.

If we use an inanimate object - some are looking at it from a risk assessment point of view. Ie all ladders have the potential for you to fall off and smash you head

And some are looking it from the other perspective - not every ladder will kill or maim someone.

Both are correct. Thread solved. I give myself A+ ✅

Once again ignoring the sea of women. Those of us who work in underpaid roles in shelters, treatment, rehab, hospitals, care homes, as nurses, as carers (both paid and unpaid) wiping arses and checking O2 levels and making sure meds are working and calling ambulances when lips go blue and all the underpaid roles in places where you rarely see a male member of staff unless it's the manager.

Yes, more firefighters and paramedics are male. But if you poofed all the women out of the world buzzers would start going off very quickly. I've called the emergency services and saved a few lives myself. I think it must run into the hundreds of times I've had to call (fires [plural], ODs, wellness checks, MH crisis, assaults, diabetic issues, DV, child abuse). Mine has been saved a couple of times. But again, male surgeon but female MW and anesthesiologist and nurses, outnumbering the men.

I'd argue that in the life-saving stakes the women are still winning. It's just that the less glamourous jobs are female. I mean have you been in a hospital recently? If it wasn't for women and immigrants (and women immigrants), we'd be buggered.

I agree 100% with the value women and immigrants bring to our society but nobody is questioning that. It's men that are once again being demonised with comments like 'most if not all men are misogynist'.

To suddenly try and make women the victims when my whole objection was against frankly quite misandric views is pretty much what people on here refer to as a DARVO tactic.

This shit is why feminism is now so unpopular with women. I frequently wonder whether feminists don't care about this or whether they just genuinely believe that their little cliques are some manner of modern day suffragettes and all the other women are 'cool girls'/'handmaidens' or whatever.

Increasingly, I'm starting to wonder if it's none of the above and these people just get some kind of kick of playing moral superiority online like the woke crowd do when they all gang up and cancel people etc. When less than 10% of us want to call ourselves feminists but the vast majority still believe in equality it's time to read the room.

And a lot more men give their lives to protect their society, which is of course ignored. Just look at Ukraine.

I expect you'll make some comment about how the violence was started by men but that's because feminists only look at sex and completely ignore things like race/religion/sexuality/etc. They don't seem to get that people like Shamima Begum and her mates would almost certainly side with a Muslim man over the white feminist sisterhood.

If we say that non violent men are responsible for the violence of other men then we arrive at the odd situation where a Black man beating beaten up by the police must accept some responsibility for the actions of the men beating him up, which quite frankly is absurd.

well most nurses are women, most HCA are women, each one was born from a woman so I’d say…. Quite a few more. In fact, if their mums hadn’t given birth to them, then they’d have died so I’d say… all of them?

So what does your version of equality look like @RotundBeagle ? Women earning the same as men? Men being discriminated against in the employment market as “they may want children one day so no point promoting them”? Men giving up work or taking part time jobs to care for children so women can earn more and progress in their careers? Men doing a lot Of the unpaid labour women do such as caring for elderly or disabled relatives? If a couple has a disabled child, in 90 %of cases it is the mother who gives up her job to care for the child? Why do men never seem to want to take on those roles?

The problem is that while most men may not be actively violent, most men do not stand up against a culture where male violence is prevalent. They do not call other men out on violence behaviour or language. Male violence will only end when men end it. Men must stop being colluders and bystanders.

I agree with this. This is taking a frustratingly long time to change.

I do find the word 'ally' a bit <bleurgh> but we could use more allies.

Even on the tiniest aspects - such as how workplace policies affect working mothers - it falls to those affected to do all the talking it feels.

We can get into the same old circles of arguments, but ultimately I think it's all a waste of time. Usually when this argument kicks off, nobody is actually claiming that "all men are like that". Intelligent people don't use NAMALT in good faith, because it's not actually countering anything. It's there to try and minimise the male violence that does exist: the implication always being "some men aren't violent, so we shouldn't really talk about the ones who are".

Talk about the problem of male violence. Talk about those who try to downplay the problem of male violence. Anything else is a distraction.

You also cannot offset violence by using the amount of good done in other situations. They don't cancel each other out; they are different issues.

So you want equality but you want men to defend you is that right? what do men get out of that deal other than further misandry and abuse? Stepping in would simply increase the statistics on men being violent which youd then use against men.

Surely its PEOPLE, including yourself and other women who are not standing up to violence and calling it out? You cant claim you can do everything men can do and we oppress you then say you expect us to solve all the problems you are unwilling to resolve yourself and its somehow our fault that you are unwilling to fend for yourself and defend others.

My advice to anyone of either sex would be if safe to do so try to prevent violence against anybody. But that comes from the misogyny, I was brought up to protect the more vulnerable.

Women have been brought up to think they cant stop violence, but statistically men are more willing to hit other men than hit a woman, So a woman has more chance of stopping a violent altercation between strangers than a man.

13.4% of the UK Armed forces are Female, so statistically Men are much more willing to stand up to violence.

Only 32.4% of Police Officers are women.

Its been decades since the Police started pushing diversity quotas for women and at least two since the Armed forces has.

There is nothing that is actively preventing women joining these organisations so they can stand up and call out violence and other wrongdoing. If you look at the statistics on gender in early childcare, marketing roles (51.7% women) then the influences on young women not to join these jobs is predominantly female.

Just a thought

I generally don’t think it’s good or helpful to make comparisons between the struggles of different demographics because it’s reductive, but I’m going to do it here: all men grow up in a society where systemic sexism is very prevalent so all men will have absorbed this to varying degrees. It’s the same as saying all white people are racist - as a class, white people grew up in a society in which systemic racism is prevalent, and as a white person I have absolutely no issue with this statement because it’s true.

I’ve benefited from being white, I will have internalised biases and prejudice, and it isn’t enough to say “oh but I haven’t got a problem with people who aren’t white”. No, many people don’t actively hate or wish harm on non white people but they probably hold assumptions about them which are I’ll informed and damaging even if they’re not coming from a malicious place. I’ve got no problem in saying as a white person I’ve benefited from racism, I fall under that umbrella and I’m happy to work to interrogate my prejudices and be actively anti racist. Men need to be doing the same but with sexism.

This is the standard I hold myself to and I hold the people in my life to. For me it’s a red flag if people get defensive at those statements because it just says to me they’ve done no work to look at their own internalised prejudice.

So you want equality but you want men to defend you is that right? what do men get out of that deal other than further misandry and abuse? Stepping in would simply increase the statistics on men being violent which youd then use against men.

Surely its PEOPLE, including yourself and other women who are not standing up to violence and calling it out? You cant claim you can do everything men can do and we oppress you then say you expect us to solve all the problems you are unwilling to resolve yourself and its somehow our fault that you are unwilling to fend for yourself and defend others.

Who exactly are you talking to? Or are you just having a rant at women in general?

How can you possibly know anything about what women are doing, individually and collectively, in their daily lives to stand up to violence and "call it out"?

What are all these problems that we are allegedly unwilling to resolve ourselves?

Intelligent people don't use NAMALT in good faith, because it's not actually countering anything. It's there to try and minimise the male violence that does exist: the implication always being "some men aren't violent, so we shouldn't really talk about the ones who are

"Some men aren't violent, so we shouldn't really talk about the ones who are". To your mind maybe. For me, it's an attempt to get the issues into correct proportions. Men are not some borg colony.

It's very clear that some groups of men are more prone to violence that others, just one example, being younger men - they are more prone to fighting than older men. Within that set, younger men under the influence of alcohol are more prone to violence than sober young men. These things are really not rocket science.

So you want equality but you want men to defend you is that right? what do men get out of that deal other than further misandry and abuse? Stepping in would simply increase the statistics on men being violent which youd then use against men.

So much nonsense in such a tiny paragraph.

First sentence. Yes, because I expect everyone to EQUALLY defend each other against the ills of the world. I've reported racism in public, called the police and stepped in when the violence was between two men. Sat next to someone being bullied on a tube. Just smiled at her and carried on with my day, so she knows there's someone there. Allowed someone to wait inside my place of work when there was an issue outside. And so on.

Second sentence. A better world? Knowing the women they care about and love will in turn be defended by the men around them? Sleeping at night knowing the world is not worse because they live in it? Why do any of us try to make the world better?

Third sentence. Funny you go straight to violence. Almost a meme. The two memorable times men stepped in for me they both used exactly the same phrase, "are you OK?" Didn't address the man sexually harassing me, just asked if I was OK. They were different nationalities (weirdly both immigrants) in different countries, different locations, different builds. Nothing the same about either of them but that simple phrase, "are you OK?" Signalled that I wasn't alone, their male and therefore important eyes were witnessing and they were available. No violence required. None implied and none needed. In both cases the second a man intervened, the harassment stopped. Funny that. Because in one case the man was very persistent beforehand.

Of course I can count the times men have helped on the fingers of one hand. And the times it's happened in front of other men I think possibly hundreds but definitely tens of times. Since 11 years old. Men didn't even intervene in the street harassment of a girl in school uniform. Often men were doing it in groups. All happy with the behaviour I assume, because there is no evidence to the contrary. Not even a "FFS mate she's a kid". Little old ladies have stepped in more than men. Particularly when I was a child.

Well said.

The problem is that you lump all men into some homogenous group. Yet I doubt you'd consider yourself collectively responsible for all the liberal feminists who support the sex industry and support the trans lobby while they whittle away our hard earned rights.

How can white men tackle violence in the Muslim community? Honour killings, revenge rapes, FGM, etc.

How can a retired guy living in the home counties tackle knife crime amongst black youths in inner city areas?

How can middle class accountants who rarely drink tackle working class football hooligans fighting in the town centre after a match?

How can a gay man tackle homophobic violence or a POC tackle racist violence?

If men are 'colluders' for the violence of other men does the victim then have to apologise for the violence inflicted on him?

Should Eric Garner have been apologising profusely as he was choked to death by a police officer?

Why do men never seem to want to take on those roles?

I'd wager that it doesn't help that women don't like it when men take on these roles. A SAHD or a male who is the lower earner are both much more likely to be divorced by their wives.

Don't forget that the vast majority of women nowadays don't identify as feminists.

It was a direct reply to curlowkate at 0605 hope that helps 😀

I was addressing the implication we need to "stand up to" and "call out" which is very different from what you describe which is showing solidarity and support.

I would suggest that before making argument for arguments sake you look up the words and phrases you're referring to. Defend for example has a definition (feel free to use the Oxford or Colin's dictionary's which are freely available online)

I agree with your position in principle, taking into account you've completely misread what the poster I was refering to and I had said and made a direct, unfounded attack on me personally based on your misinterpretation or laziness

I don't argue with sixth formers.

"The Oxford English Dictionary defines..."

It's just semantics. If we all know what we're talking about, why don't men?